


Evocation: Static

by kupopopoyo



Series: Young Justice: Summonings [2]
Category: Justice League, Static Shock, Teen Titans (Animated Series), Young Justice
Genre: Action, Coming Out, Drama, F/M, Homophobia, How does this superhero biz work again?, M/M, Multi, random thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-05-30
Packaged: 2018-03-16 18:40:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3498821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kupopopoyo/pseuds/kupopopoyo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A companion piece to Young Justice Summonings.  Explores Virgil's case and addition to the Team.  Also includes random thoughts about how the Team might work and pointless details that would bog down the main story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cookies and Non-emergency nose-hair pickers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not betad and I'm editing at one in the morning here. @_@  
> This fits in the scenes between Summonings, but I'm not going to stress about fitting things into the main story line perfectly. Not that much at least. Nothing is spoiled so feel free to read. I'll try to be good about warning about this for each chapter.
> 
> Young Justice, Teen Titans, Static Shock, and others works whose characters and stories are used and referenced in this fic are not my property. The convoluted plot is though. :3

**_Tower construction zone – Jump City_**

**_July 5, 2016_ **

**_14:23 PDT_ **

“Hey Virgil!” Cassie swooped down and grabbed the boy up in a hug that had them floating a bit short of a foot off the ground.  Karen watched the junior members of the Team with amusement as she put away her book - ready for more work in the lab with Batgirl.

“He-hey Cass!  Ho-how are you?”  The last word squeaked a bit as Cassie whipped him around from an awkward vice grip across his chest to hold him by the shoulders in the air.

“I beat Batgirl!  Get this, we were sparring and I was all ‘pow-pow’ punching with my fists and she was all nuh-uh can’t touch this!  But then she tried to kick me and I blocked, but then she tried to use the other leg and I did the thing that Canary’s been teaching us and totally grabbed her leg and swung her out of the ring!”  Cassie became so caught up in her story, she pulled Virgil into a hug a little-too quickly.

*crack* “Ouch!”

“Cassie….” Tim called warningly as he entered the kitchen.  Karen was laughing, holding her sides as she gasped for air.

“Uhm…”  Cassie still floated up in the air, holding Virgil who sagged in her arms, out like a light.

Batgirl stuck her head in the room.  “What’d she do?”

“I kinda...hitourheadstogether…” Cass sheepishly admitted.  Karen’s whoop made the flush on her face even redder.

“Your turn,” Batgirl said, ducking back out, presumably to go work on the lab.

Tim only sighed and walked forward, his arms out.  “Let me see him Cass.”

Tim got Virgil back on his feet and checked that he was without any real injury before he and Babs were called off on some mission in the southwest.  Cassie wanted to go with, but Kaldur’s new policy of keeping a Team in the back for other contingencies put her, Karen, and Virgil on the bench.  Mal was still off researching Lexcorp’s sudden interest in Jump City and La’gaan had been called to Atlantis for something or another.  Nightwing was testing a policy of having the contingency team to always have at least one member of super-strength when it wasn’t necessary for the main mission and as backup.  Of course, it hadn’t slipped by Cassie that with Connor offworld, she was sitting out as this backup doing stealth drills as she waited. A lot.

Virgil had a bit of a headache, but  by Tim’s rather extensive personal knowledge with injuries, nothing severe.  Cassie’s apology was very sincere and a good distraction from watching Nightwing lead Tim and Babs off on a mission without her again. Thankfully Virgil only had to walk away with a dozen cookies instead of the usual three dozen Cassie insisted on.  He never turned down the cookies, but there was only so much he could eat before he made himself sick or they got stale and became a waste.  Most of the Team were of the opinion that Cassie and Ma’gaan should open their own bakery or cafe or something, but explaining sudden disappearances, sometimes for days on end, to part-timers would be a bit tricky.  Notably, Victor’s grilled sandwiches and burgers were being tossed into the fantasy - Raquel had been much amused to hear that her husband’s cooking was so well received by the Team.

Virgil snuck one of the said roast beef sandwiches from the fridge and a cola before planning to go home.  Unsurprisingly for a team of young superheroes, the refrigerator was one of the first things the Team set up in their new HQ and regarded with nearly as much veneration as the super computer.  Of course the coffee maker reigned supreme, but Virgil had yet to be shepherded into the fold of the mocha bean just yet.  Still, he wasn’t alone thinking it was comedy gold though to read the coffee makers special-of-the-day auxiliary functions.  These ranged from the understandable - such as microwave functions - to the comically unnecessary.  Virgil’s took a look at today’s listed commands.  “Let’s see, smoothie maker, fingerprint locked beer dispenser, and...non-emergency nose-hair picker.  Is there an emergency nose-hair picker?” he asked Karen who was refilling at the machine.

“Don’t diss the Holy Grail Virg, it gave me a manicure last week,” she smirked, opening a small bag of sugar into her mug and showing off her nails with her free hand.

Virgil shook his head to show his amused disbelief. “I actually remember that one.  I swear that whoever gave us this sneaks in to add more junk every night.”

Karen grinned.  “And praise be to whoever locked Cassie out.”

Cassie, who was still present and cutting vegetables, sniffed in disdain.

“Wait what?” Virgil’s smile faded.  

Karen’s brows went up.  “Have you ever seen her on caffeine?”

“Actually,” Virgil rubbed the back of his head, “I thought she was always taking sips when I wasn’t looking..”

“Hey!” Cassie yelped.  “To think, I gave you cookies!”

“Let’s just say the lock on the soda isn’t just to keep BB out.”

“Karen!  Stop it!”

Karen laughed off Cassie’s half-hearted poking and went back to the rudimentary lab she shared with Babs.  Cass went back to cooking, experimenting with a casserole and Tim’s favorite vegetables while Virgil caught up on homework and stole the odd carrot to chew on.

After forty minutes and nearing the end of his chemistry homework, Virgil's phone went off and he snagged it out of his bag with a weak jolt of power.  Someone had sent him a picture message - Tye.  The text attached was short and unhelpful: “what the fucking fuck.”  Opening the file, he cracked open his soda, took a sip and glanced down.

Cassie looked up in amusement as Virgil spewed cola on the counter.  “Virgil?”

He fumbled for something to wipe the soda off his face, and grabbed a napkin.  Then he grabbed another and used it to gingerly pick up his phone by the strap like it was diseased or something.

Cassie leaned over and took it in hand  “Oh!   _Awwwwww!!_ ”

Virgil gave her a strange look.  “Did you just “awwwwww” over that?”

“Do you think it’s their first time?” she asked excitedly.

“How would I know?  I had no idea!” Virgil pulled the phone back and glared at the picture of Arsenal locking lips with Ed.  The angle of the picture was odd and blurry, but there no mistaking Roy Harper with that arm of his.  His headache throbbed.

“I can’t wait for Gar to get back, I so called it!”

“Gar?” Virgil side eyed her. “You two keep tabs on who’s dating.”

Cassie nodded.  “We wager.  Jaime owes me and Bart for this actually, but Gar said he couldn’t see it.”

“Yeah…” Virgil didn’t meet her eyes.  “Talk to you later…”

Cassie was so tied up in her delight she didn’t think too much other than a pang of guilt over the way Virgil was rubbing his forehead.  She needn’t have bothered, Virgil’s headache was intensifying for a very different reason.  As it was, the oven beeped, ready for her casserole so she completely missed Static mutter something under his breath as he left.  “’s not natural....”

**_Dakota City_**

**_July 5, 2016_ **

**_17:21 CST_ **

Virgil walked out of the old phone booth that was the Dakota City zeta tube and opened the door.  Or rather tried.

“Uhm, Uhrmf.   _URGH!!!!_ ” Virgil repeatedly pushed on the door to no avail.  “Great...the door’s jammed.  Just my kind of day.”  He wearily pushed out with his power and the booth door crackled with electricity.

Abruptly a hooded figure tapped on the glass to Virgil’s right.  Virgil screamed and, losing control of his powers, sent electricity crawling up and down all around the metal of booth making it light up like a trash dump’s idea of a Christmas tree display.

The hooded guy’s finger twitched and he finished pulling back the now-singed hood to reveal blond hair standing on end an earring in his left ear that still flickered with static.   Black eyes glared at him under glasses, one lens of which was now cracked.  “Hi Virgil,” he coughed. The glass between them made it hard to understand him, but Virgil knew this voice as well as his own.  Virgil guiltily watched him cough up a puff of smoke as he spoke.

“He-hey Rich!  Wha...what’cha doing?”

“Hi Virgil.” He repeated, making Virgil wince.  Richie was supposed to call him V.  Or V-man.  Calling him Virgil made Richie sound as overbearing as Sharon - and Richie knew that.  At least he didn't seem to think much of the lightning.  “I was waiting here.  You know.  After I saw you walk into the booth and disappeared.  Just in case you, oh I don’t know, decide to ditch us for months on end.   _Again_.”

“Oh…” Virgil said lamely.  Richie was watching him sadly, an expression Virgil had become unfortunately well-acquainted with as of late.  He kept catching Richie giving him that wide-eyed, frightened look like he couldn’t really believe that Virgil was there.  As if Virgil had really died and the person in front of him was a hack, a fake convincing Richie that he had finally lost it.

Virgil cursed the goddamn Reach, and then the League for keeping him away for so long.  The Team at least had understood, but it wasn’t their call and he understood that.  He wouldn’t argue with Batman most of the time either.  It was starting to look really appealing though.  It wasn’t fair to have helped Richie through all that shit with his mom getting hospitalized and dad disappearing into work for days on end only to think that now it was his fault Richie was in pieces again.

“Hey, Richie…”

“Is this where you’ve been going?  Why you’ve been ditching us after school?  Why you haven’t been hanging out with us lately?...”

“Man it’s not like that!  I can’t tell you, why but…”  Virgil mind filled with needles and shocks.  Shocks.  Over and over again until he remembered his skin peeling sometimes, the top layer just dead and cracking.  He pulled back, that was months ago and this was not Dakota City - not the Reach’s underwater spaceship.  How could he tell Richie about all that the Reach did to him?  It would only mess him up worse!

Still, it was the wrong thing to say.  Richie balled his hands into fists, then pulled back his sleeve.  “Remember this?” he shoved his wrist up to the glass.  “If you really are Virgil Hawkins, you know what this means to us.”  The bracelet's three charms scraped against the old glass, leaving rough scratches as Richie shook.  “So I’m asking you to answer me.  I’m your best friend man!  What the hell is going on?”

Virgil stared at Richie, mouth dry and his headache a full migraine now.  “Cool your jets man!  I’m not -”

“Answer me!  Are you even Virgil Hawkins?  Who are you?”  Richie slammed the glass frantically.

The pounding made his head throb and he clenched his eyes shut.  “Man hold on a sec and stop with all the questions!   It’s a bracelet, not a fucking Bible!”  As soon as he said that, Virgil realized the pounding had stopped.  He opened his eyes to see Richie’s face dim like a light had gone out.

“You’re not Virgil,” he said ominously quiet.  He tore the bracelet off his wrist and threw on the ground then ran.

“Richie!  Wait!” Virgil punched the door but it didn’t budge.  “Damn it!”  He kicked the door in a fury and it finally slid open.  By then, Richie was long gone.  Virgil stared at the bracelet lying among the street’s trash.  He bent and picked it up.  There were three charms in it - a lightning bolt, a flower, and in between the two a gear.  On the clasp was a cheesy phrase “Together Forever.”  He, Daisy, and Richie had all laughed at the corny sayings the cheap machine they made the bracelet from had, but it was hard to recall that now.  It felt so long ago.  Before aliens and superheroes, and kids disappearing had happened.  For a moment, he couldn’t shake the image of Ivan staring at him as the Reach wheeled his coffin out.

Then his comm squeaked.  Virgil raised a hand to his ear and listened to Nightwing’s crisp communication with wide eyes.  Richie was going to have to wait - Kaldur was dying.  He pushed back into the Zeta tube.  “Cassie!”

_\- “Virgil?” -_

“Where should I go?”

_\- “...I have no idea - honestly.  Silver City is too far from any of our tubes to get there quickly enough.  The bio-ship takes a half hour to go from the Watchtower to there even at max speed.” -_

“I’ll come over to the Tower then.”

_\- “Sounds good.  I’ll - ” -_

Captain Atom’s voice cut in on the Team frequency. _\- “Flash says that he’s getting Green Lantern from Coast City to take Aqualad to the Watchtower.  Batman recommends the Team meet there.” -_

Karen’s piped up curiously,   _\- “Isn’t there a STAR facility nearby that’s closer?” -_

 _\- “Nor for treating Atlanteans,” -_ Captain Atom solemnly reminded her.  Then he cut off communications

_\- “Well, Karen and I will catch you at the Watchtower then Virgil.” -_

Virgil nodded and then remembered no one would see that. “Yeah, see you there.”

As he declared the Watchtower as his destination, Virgil stuck Richie’s bracelet into his pocket.  He’d apologize tonight - Richie was in too bad a shape to put it off any longer.  And there was the fact that he was going to talk Richie with Nightwing today anyways before Kaldur went missing.  He had been gone for a couple months and when he had been taken, Richie was his mild-mannered comic nerd of a best friend who wasn’t failing, but wasn’t the posterboy of the school’s GPA.  Then Virgil came back and even accounting for the hole in his life, Richie was suddenly taking Virgil’s place among the honor students - acing his grades without trying and showing flashes of a knowledge of science that outstipped Vigil’s when he always favored media and politics before.  He always let Virgil lead the labs and now Virgil’s grades depended on Richie’s help.

For crying out loud, Richie built a robotic pet with programming even Daisy couldn’t comprehend, and she transferred in from Vanmoor Institute - the state’s most prestigious advanced science and robotics Academy!  Something was fishy and Virgil wouldn’t be surprised if Richie had a metagene factor going on in the background.  But first thing’s first.  Kaldur.

~*~

_**Watchtower**_

_**July 5, 2016** _

_**18:40 EST**_  

Virgil was glad to find that he was not the only one in a mess over their leader.  At first he stood quietly with Cassie as she clung to Karen's hand.  The other heroes were similarly silent.  Even La'gaan seemed to be missing his usual spirit and Mal was quiet as ever.  Then a Green Lantern flashed by and into the infirmary.  The Team arrived nearly a half hour later.  It hadn't seemed right to go in until Nightwing and Tigress stormed in. Most of the Team followed, but Virgil wasn't sure where he belonged.  Cassie went straight to Tim.  Karen and Mal were embracing each other while La'gaan conferred with Aquaman, leaving Virgil standing awkwardly alone.

When he noticed Jaime and Bart come out of the waiting room, he ambled over.  All the boyish enthusiasm and ribbing jokes they usually indulged in was gone.  In fact Jaime seemed insistent on helping apply something to the back of Bart’s head and the seated speedster was not taking well to it.

“You know that it’s already healed,” Bart muttered and winced as Jaime finally checked his head wound.

Jaime must’ve picked something up from his mother’s work because he was unfazed and actually sounded quite soothing as he pulled back.  “ _Si_.  But I have to get this blood out of your hair somehow dude.  And unless you want me to rub your cut by accident it and open it up again, you’ll suck it up and let me apply the liquid bandage. And...there.”

Bart stuck his tongue out but was distracted by Virgil’s arrival.  “Yo Static,” he sighed with much less vigor than usual.

Despite the gloomy mood, Virgil couldn’t help making a crack at the two.  “Didn’t know you were getting into hair styling Jaime.  Bart could go for something besides the ‘windswept look.”

“Hey it’s a Flash Family hallmark,” Bart smirked back, a spark back in his eyes, as Jaime chuckled.

“You want to go next dude?” Jaime casually flipped the canister of liquid band-aid aside and began to wet Bart’s sense-defying hair.  “Tell me you don’t use as much product as this guy does.”  Part of the Blue Beetle armor deployed to help Jaime pick through Bart’s hair for blood in a way that Virgil was pretty sure the armor hadn’t quite been envisioned for.  As if he were in sync with Virgil’s thoughts, Jaime quietly muttered, “Shut up Khaj.”

Bart elbowed Jaime and Virgil grinned, twirling the back of one of his dreads.  “Nope.  100% natural,” Virgil grinned.

“So is mine,” Bart protested, amused despite himself.  “Must be another funky fresh speedster perk.”

“Funky?” Virgil looked at Jaime.

“Fresh…” he repeated back to Virgil.  “Bart where do you pick up your slang _hermano_?”

“Internet,” Bart smirked, crossing his arms.

“Ah, that explains why he sounds like a funny man from a b-list high school movie.” Virgil said, his arm crossing more smug than Bart’s.  He and Jaime shared a grin at the gasp and falsely wounded look Bart gave them.

It felt good to laugh again. After Richie, Virgil was dreading too much quiet time to think over what Richie had thrown in his face.  Watching Bart and Jaime bickering reminded him of better times with Richie and that was better than letting guilt and grief taint those happy memories.   When Bart was cleaned up, they lead the way to the others and Virgil followed close behind, enjoying their companionship.

The good cheer faded with the somber atmosphere and the gravity of Kaldur’s situation.  But then Dr. Mid-Nite broke the good news and then Captain Atom the news about Zatanna.  Jaime dragged Bart off from the room they moved Kaldur to, but Bart came back alone fidgeting nervously.  Virgil gave him a look.  “Dude, what’s the matter with you?  You’re more finicky than a bug in a rug.”

Bart gave him a nervous half-grin and waved it off.  La’gaan saved him from saying anymore.  “Hey minnows.  We’re staying here for the night so Kaldur won’t be alone.  You in?”

Kaldur had been an inspiration of sorts to Virgil and he missed the stuff with the Krolateans and Kaldur’s betrayal.  The Atlantean angle was more depressing and harder to ignore.  “I don’t know La’gaan.  with all the stuff he’s done,..does he deserve that?”

“V…,”  Virgil recoiled seeing Richie’s face instead of Bart’s.  “You told me that Kaldur was your idol!  He and Rocket were the ones that convinced you could be a hero no matter what your skin color, right?”  Virgil shook off his guilt and crossed his arms.

“Yeah, but...there are some lines you can’t uncross.”

La’gaan looked to Bart, but when the speedster failed to come up with anything, the Atlantean caught Virgil’s eye and folded his arms.  “...Not defending what he and Nightwing did dude, but he’s one of us.  And in the end it was for a good cause.  I’m not going to say you have to be chill with what he’s done, but if I can forgive him as an Atlantean, can’t you?”

Virgil looked down.  After a while he nodded and raised his head.  “Let me tell my dad.  He’s probably wigging out since I haven’t come home yet.”  In his pocket, Virgil’s hands clenched around Richie’s bracelet, feeling its metal digging into his skin. _‘Sorry Richie…’_

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Richie. :(  
> He is not going to be having a good time at the start of this. Hopefully Virgil will be able to bring back the sweet and sensitive jokester brainiac we all love. <3
> 
> Virgil’s views are not in any way representative of mine. I think it’s a valuable point of his character development in the original Milestone Media comics that the DC animated shows always dropped. Given the context of the main story, I hope you will follow as I flesh out and see how it might develop in these stories. Canon Riche is gay! WHOOT!


	2. Game arcades and Cell Phones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Young Justice, Teen Titans, Static Shock, and others works whose characters and stories are used and referenced in this fic are not my property. The convoluted plot is though. :3

**_Dakota City_**

**_Several months before_ **

_“Hey, how about this ride?” Daisy suggested._

_Virgil shot her a fond, but skeptical look as he helped pull Richie along through the fair ground.  “Right...because nothing says “having a good time” more than a rattling death drop that drops you from fifty feet in the air and stinks of puke.”  As if to prove his point, he had to yank their despondent friend around a fresh puddle of puke in their way._

_Daisy raised a brow, but since Richie looked less than enthusiastic she sighed.  Then she looked beyond them and her face lit up with an idea.  “How about that?”_

_Virgil turned to look.  “The video arcade?  I didn’t know these places even had them anymore.”_

_“You said I should be learning the finer points of gaming.  Not to mention it’s advertising the new “Plantman” game,” she smirked.  “I bet there’s at least one game in there I can beat you in.”_

_“Daisy, those are fighting words,” Virgil chuckled.  “Whaddaya say Richie?”_

_The blond boy didn’t even look up.  He shrugged though, and Virgil took that to mean “yes” and ran with it.  It took a half hour and a **lot** of quarters, but Daisy finally got their blond friend to smile when she button-mashed her way to victory in a close match with an incredulous Virgil on a fighter game._

_“Rematch!” Virgil demanded._

_Daisy ducked behind Richie.  “Nuh-uh, I beat you fair and square.  The challenge was any game  you didn’t set up any rules.  Back me up here Richie.”_

_“She’s right Virg,” he admitted at last, though he still sounded weary._

_“Oh I see, tag teaming me?” In a burst of inspiration,Virgil grinned widely jabbing his finger to somewhere beyond the tent.  “Well, then I challenge the two of you to a laser tag match! I saw one a little further up the way.”_

_Richie didn’t have a chance to object with Daisy roping him in and asking him so many questions he had no choice but to help her.  He had to, not even noticing his own smile as Daisy turned to face him in the staging area.  She wore a determined smile with a gun in hand and the laser-reading armor very much completely backwards.   He was so busy pointing out the rules and how to use the equipment he missed the triumphant thumbs up Daisy shot Virgil.  Her pride might suffer, but for Richie, it was worth it._

_Daisy had never played laser tag before, but she was adamant this be a monthly thing if not a weekly event as she caught Virgil on the shoulder with another precise shot.  Richie was stifling his laughter as he watched Virgil getting demolished by his not-as-meek as-they-thought girlfriend.  He tagged a college student-aged guy sneaking up behind them and then nearly dropped his gun laughing as Virgil popped up, primed to take a shot at Daisy, only to be caught by an ecstatic eight year old off to the side.  The horrified look on his face was too much as Daisy and Richie leaned into each other, laughing and not caring that the eight year old’s friends caught them too._

_After that Virgil and Daisy stuffed him with pizza and soda and they all had to duck into the bushes after the roller coaster ride because of it.  Daisy insisted on the house of horrors and snuck incriminating photos of Virgil and Richie screaming and grabbing at each other.  They were less than pleased to learn that her aunt and uncle had been taking her here every Halloween since she was ten and knew each scare like it was her own home._

_Eventually, their circuit of the amusement park brought them back to the arcade.  Riche and Virgil managed to make it through half of one game before their quarters ran out.  They went to find Daisy to find her in front of one of the silly machines that created cheap trinkets like dog tags or pet collars or the novelty of stretched pennies.  Seeing them, Daisy waved the two over._

_“I was thinking we should make one of these.”_

_“Daisy, if you wanted some bling, I could do better.”_

_“Maybe a diamond ring, plus a romantic love letter?” Richie grinned, rhyming off Virgil._

_Daisy grinned triumphantly as Virgil smirked and lightly smacked Richie’s shoulder.  “Nerd,” Virgil teased._

_“Corny,” Richie shot back shamelessly._

_“Sweet,” Daisy decided.  Seeing Richie flush and rub the back of his neck sheepishly did wonders for Daisy’s ego.  Their wise-cracking friend was still in there somewhere, and neither she nor Virgil were going to let go of him that easily.  “I was thinking it’s been a while since we’ve been able to do this.” She was careful not to bring up Richie’s family as she pressed on with an air of enthusiastic optimism  “We should make a souvenir of today.”_

_Richie and Virgil’s faces were contrasting studies of skepticism and amused incredulity respectively.  Daisy shrugged their responses off.  “If neither of you want to do this, I at least want something to remember today by.”  She dragged them over to a machine and held them still enough for a picture of the three of them pressed close which the machine printed in a cheap locket.  “I’m paying,” she offered as the boys reconsidered her proposal.  They shrugged and checked out the other machines.  Virgil finally settled with three dog tags embossing each with one of their names and birthdays._

_“A bit plain,” Daisy criticized as Virgil slipped them around his neck and showed them off.  Her boyfriend stuck his tongue out at her and、 according to the rules they set up after their last fight, she quickly grabbed the tip and tugged gently._

_“Thowwy,” Virgil gracelessly surrendered to Daisy’s grin.  Then she looked around._

_“Where did Richie go?”_

_They found him near another machine tucked in the corner.  Daisy snuck a look over Richie’s shoulder.  “Oh!  A friendship bracelet?  Why didn’t I see this sooner?”  Virgil chuckled and wrapped his arms around Daisy and Richie in a loose hug._

_Richie inserted a few dollar bills into the machine.  “We can make a bracelet with a couple charms.  I was thinking of three - one for each of us,” the young boy explained.  He ran through the procedure of picking the colors and styles and they came to the charms.  Richie ducked out of Virg’s hold and stepped back.  “You first Virg.”_

_“Oh so that’s how you wanna do it,” Virgil chuckled.  He bent over the screen and, after a while, he tapped a lightning bolt._

_“I didn’t know you liked Harry Potter so much,” Daisy teased, knowing full well what Virgil actually had in mind._

_“You know Black Lightning is way cooler any day of the week.  Too bad they didn’t have a lantern - I woulda picked that first.”_

_“Hey, don’t diss Black Lightning.  He took out that Interpol gang remember?”　Richie reminded the others._

_Virgil crossed his arms over his chest grumpily.  “Man, I still can’t believe I was sick that day.  A black hero shows up right next to the school and the highlight of **my** day was that my mom came home early to give me soup so I didn’t have to eat the bowl of glue Sharon made me.”_

_Daisy shoved Virgil, ruining his image of injured dignity.  “Oh suck it up.  Richie got you his autograph didn’t he?”_

_Richie smirked and leaned into the machine.  He tapped an icon and then stood back for Daisy to choose her charm.  She paused to see what he chose and shot him a grin.  “Still planning on going into robotics?”_

_Virgil took a look himself.  “A gear, really?  That’s so cheesy.”_

_“Well, what did you think I’d choose?  The rose?”_

_Virgil put on the silliest French accent he could.  “Mon cherie, you have zee heart of ze roman-tic, non?”_

_“You making fun of flowers Virg?” Daisy folded her arms meaningfully._

_“Er, no?”_

_“Thought so.”  She turned back to the screen and picked a typically stubby-petaled daisy charm as if to prove a point to Virgil.  With the three charms chosen, the flickering screen shifted to a choosing a clasp.  The options ranged from a plain band of metal, to designs, and even messages on the clasp of the arm._

_“Oh this is so cheesy, you have got to pick one of these Richie,” Daisy cackled.  The three gathered around and looked at the options under the messages, suggesting the ironic to the plain unbelievable.  “Gushy Mushy Best Friends Forever Till the End of Time!” Virgil keep insisting.  Luckily Daisy was siding with Richie and kept her boyfriend from getting too out of hand._

_Then a speaker somewhere beyond the tent announcing closing in a half hour.  “Closing time already?” Virgil yelped.  “Aw man!”_

_“We need to get back to catch the bus,” Daisy sighed._

_Richie decided to go with a simple “Together Forever.”  “It fits,” Richie said defensively to Virgil’s pronounced smirk.  “Now let’s go get in line for seats, unless you want to stand the entire ride home like you did earlier.”  Virgil took the opening to start complaining again about his “noble sacrifice” for his girlfriend and best friend giving them the seats for the hour long ride.  As one Daisy and Richie shoved Virgil out of the arcade tent and towards the bus stop._

~*~

A loud snort by Virgil’s ear dragged him out of his dream.  Cracking his eyes open confirmed Bart as the culprit.  He gathered himself enough to give the slumbering speedster a grumpy frown.  Scooting back on the tiled floor, he settled himself again and closed his eyes.  His fingers found Richie’s bracelet in his pocket and he played his thumb over the three charms, feeling the rough grooves and uneven edges of the cheap charms.  The other hand crept to the dog tags still hidden under his shirt.

Virgil still remembered what came after that memory too.   _“This bracelet represents how the three of us will always be together.”  Daisy had lain a hand over Virgil’s and Richie’s each on the ride home.  “We’ll always be there for you Richie.”_  After that Richie seemed to lighten up a bit more, he was smiling and actually joked back at school for the first time in weeks as Virgil made a fool of himself getting Richie to smile.  He even started visiting his mother and leaving flowers with her again three days after.  It looked like he was going to pull through.

Virgil had been kidnapped the next week.

Back in reality, Virgil checked his phone.  It was a little after five back in Dakota.  He’d have to get ready for school in two hours.  At least his dad and mom promised to cover for him and keep Sharon from worrying too much.  Hopefully.  He still wasn’t into League coms, but he didn’t really have much of choice.  Up here, his cell really wasn’t much better than a timepiece.  He had only asked Babs why cell phones didn’t work up here once.

_“Bab’s why can’t we use cell phones?”_

_“It’s space Static.  Have you tried linking up with cell phones from here?  League comms work on a completely different system so cell phones are a no go,” she said matter-of-factly._

_Tim gave into pity over Virgil’s surprise and gave him a proper explanation.  “There’s no towers or receivers to support the signals outside of highly secured frequencies for emergencies.  League com’s are the only things we’re allowed to use outside of emergencies or getting in touch with politicians.  Beside didn’t you hear Batman?”_

_“Security regulations,” he and Babs chimed together._

_Virgil scratched his head.  “But we get internet,” he pointed out._

_“How easy do you think Batman would allow hacking the Watchtower to get?” Babs gently chided._

_“Firewalls and encryptions, proxies, and third party servers out the wazhoo,” Tim smiled._

Drifting from his thoughts, he noticed Dick was in the room again, Artemis too.  Even Zatanna had joined them.  The three sat in chairs along the far wall - Dick and Zatanna both leaning onto Artemis’s shoulder as they fidgeted in their sleep.

Suddenly Virgil wasn’t sleepy anymore.  It was too easy seeing him, Daisy, and Richie together in their place.  The Reach tore a hole in his life and putting it together was a lot harder for him than for Ed, Tye, and Asami who had been runaways and less...eager...to return home.  Gathering his stuff, Virgil decided to head home.  He was so focused on not disturbing anyone, he missed the look Dick shot him before he slipped out the door.

**_Dakota Union High_**

**_July 6, 2016_ **

**_07:37 CST_ **

Rather than go home, Virgil forced himself to walk around the city near the school before classes started.  Once he noticed students begin filing into the halls, he followed and went straight to Richie’s locker.  Maybe he could apologize.

Someone was at Richie’s locker, but it wasn’t the blond.   _“You!  Virgil!”_ Daisy accused, her tone of voice getting interested looks from the other students.  “Where were you last night?”

“Uh...with, uh...Richie?” Virgil’s brain lamely suggested.

“No you weren’t!  I called and called, but you didn’t answer!  I can’t believe you and your family!  What is with the hush-hush lately?  I had to go to Sharon and even she had no idea!”  Daisy was madder than Virgil had ever seen her, including the time he stood her up for study dates three times in a row.

“Daisy, hold up, hold up.  What’s wrong?”

“I know you weren’t with Richie last night.  Go ask Frieda.  Maybe she doesn’t mind secrets among friends as much as I do,” Daisy shoved her way past Virgil.

“Dude, your ex is crazy…” snorted a nearby douchebag.  Virgil ignored him and went to follow Daisy’s advice.  Best not to alienate her any more than he already had this year.

Frieda was one year above him, Richie, and Daisy, but had basically been family friends with Richie and Virgil’s family all her life.  Helping out with the Jewish camp the center supported every summer helped.  Now, Virgil went straight to the student council office where she could usually be found putting together some article or flyers for an activist cause.  Entering it, Virgil was relieved to find some part of the world as it should be.  Frieda was at her desk, but on her phone not the computer.

“ - Of course, call me if you hear anything.”  She hung up her cell and rubbed her forehead.

“Frieda!”

The girl’s eyes popped open and then she leapt to her feet.  “Virgil!  Oh my goodness, you’re all right!”  She practically threw herself over her desk to get to Virgil and pull him into a hug.  “We were so worried about you - nobody could reach you or Richie on your cells.”  She pulled back, but then frowned and craned her neck to look over Virgil’s shoulder.  “Where’s Richie?”

“Actually, I came to ask you about that.”

Frieda’s nails dug into Virgil’s shoulder in a death grip.  “You...you...don’t know where Richie is?”

“No…I...we had a fight and I wanted to make up…” Virgil’s heart was sinking.  Frieda raised a hand to her mouth looking lost in thought.  “Frieda...you and Daisy are scaring me.  Where’s Richie?...”

She wouldn’t meet his eyes.  “Richie never went home last night Virgil.  His father’s been calling the school since six,” her voice was soft with worry.  “Richie’s missing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not going to bother trying to re-imagine Richie, Daisy, and the rest of the Static crew for this fic. Just keep in mind the way looked during the last season and we'll all rest easier. :9
> 
> Next chapter will be catch up with Richie, promise! It'll be...an EXPLOSIVE meeting. Mufufu...muahaha..MUAHAHHAHHAHAHAA


	3. Shenice Vale and the Consequences of ditching family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virgil has a heart-to-heart with the girl that seems to have taken his place while he was missing - Shenice Vale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Young Justice, Teen Titans, Static Shock, and others works whose characters and stories are used and referenced in this fic are not my property. The convoluted plot is though. :3

_**Dakota City**_

_**July 6, 2016** _

_**13:02 CST** _

“Well Static, this is sheveled,” Dick sighed.  He emerged from the shadows of the alley he and Virgil stood in to fiddle with his wrist computer.  Virgil, Daisy, and her friend Shenice lasted until lunch when called a truce for the better good - Richie’s good.  They left a note with Frieda and bolted; Virgil discreetly providing a convenient distraction for the discipline officer as they snuck off the school grounds.  Dick had been waiting for Static for nearly an hour at that point and Virgil would have to settle for apologizing to the girls for ditching them to make sure he and Dick hashed out a plan to find Richie.

“My best friend, a possible metagene, is on the streets and you’re cracking semantic jokes?  Bro, you got weird priorities,” Virgil said heatedly.  Exhaustion took the bite out of his words, but only made his exasperation more apparent.  “Besides, disheveled is for people’s appearances, not turf wars!”  Sometimes Virgil wondered what working with the Batman must have done to Nightwing as a kid and the first Robin.  Fighting enemies like the Joker might make gangs seem like small fry, but surely he understood the kind of dangers they could pose - especially with the ones in Dakota City riled up after the Reach fiasco.  Turns out Luthor had planted some ideas in the gangs and a few “motivations” in Dakota City hoping to shake up Lexcorp’s rival - the rising star that was Alva Industries.  The mastermind wanted to shut down potential competitors in the business world - who would’ve guessed?

Then again, even in Gotham, Virgil doubted anyone personally connected to Bruce Wayne had to worry about gang threats the way his mother almost died in the Dakota Riots years ago.  The Batman might uphold the secret identities and hush hush on the technicalities, but the bat gang could only drop so many hints here and there.  A thoughtful bright thing like Virgil would have to make the connection between Gotham’s famous cowled hero and the city’s prominent billionaire eventually.

Dick shrugged.  “You got the point,” he lamely pointed out.

“And you’re forgetting about mine!  Where are the others?  What if Richie’s hurt?  We need to get him ASAP!”

The older cape straightened up and fixed Virgil with a thoughtful look.  “...We have powerful enemies Virgil.  Remember that Luthor is the least of our problems and if the Light or anyone else got wind of the Team’s interest in Dakota City, your friend could be in more danger than he already is.”

Virgil growled, mussing up his hair as he thought over Dick’s point.  “Then let’s stop wasting time.  You know the drill?”

Dick ticked off fingers as he reviewed their game plan.  “Follow your ex, pull the concerned hero hall monitor shtick, follow up on her leads.”  Virgil nodded.  “You sure you want me to go with her and not this Shenice?”

Virgil didn’t point out that he had no idea what Richies was up to these days.  Training to keep from frying a human with his powers meant less time checking out CDs and comics than Virgil first considered.  But that had little to do with Daisy at the moment.  “...I know if you’re with Daisy nothing bad is going to happen to her.”  

For a long moment, neither of them moved.  Virgil seemed too nervous to meet Dick’s eyes.  On his part, Dick was both pleased and surprised with the indirect compliment as well as the maturity behind that line of thinking.  “Your friendly neighborhood caped crusader, reporting for duty!” Dick mock saluted at last.  “Just make sure you and Shenice don’t get caught.”

Virgil rolled his eyes and pulled up Shenice’s number.  “Like I need you to tell me.  My pops is going to ground me until next year for pulling a Ferris Bueller.  And remember, this isn’t Bludhaven Nightwing - Daisy may be part of your fanclub but don’t tip her off.  Girl’s got brains and is curious.”  Expecting a witty comeback, Virgil looked up at the sound of unusually brattish laughter and found himself alone.  “Man, Artemis was not kidding how annoying that is.”

~*~

Shenice Vale transferred into Dakota Union High while Virgil had been in the hands of the Reach and helped Daisy recover and apparently move on from Virgil’s supposed disappearance.  Virgil was still trying to make up his mind whether he wanted to thank her or spite her for helping Daisy through the transition.  Awkward dismay was the last thing he had been expecting from his girlfriend during their reunion and it was largely due to Shenice’s counseling.  He settled for stewing in meaningful silence and grunted at Shenice’s comments wandering through Dakota City’s back alleys.

After, rather generously, putting up with Static’s sullen attitude for several hours through the mall and past Burger Fool to the edge of Paris Island, Shenice finally had enough.  She wheeled - hands on her hips.  “Hawkins! _What is your problem?_ ”

“Nothing,” he shot back pettily.

“Yeah, I’ll believe that when you stop looking at me like I threw your dog under a bus,” she rasped.  Her voice was throaty from disuse and her preference to keep to herself.  However, the look in her eyes and the way she set fists on her hip, arms akimbo, made it clear she wasn’t going to stand for this much longer.

“Chill girl.  Besides, I don’t have a dog,” Virgil said, gladly taking the opportunity to rub her ignorance over absolutely anything he could in hers face.

“Fine, how about your Wishbone plush?” she offered, not missing a beat.

Virgil found it within him to somehow glare at her even more malice.  No one knew about that gem of childhood shared between Sharon and himself without his assurance of confidentiality.  “How’d you know - ”

“Daisy mentioned it when she was trying to get over you,” Shenice explained.  “Don’t worry.  I won’t tattle.  Girls love guys who read anyways,” she dryly taunted.

“Man...why would she…” the gears in Virgil’s heads began working.  He crossed his arms.  “How much did she tell you?”  Shenice wasn’t surprised that he managed to turn a civilized question into halfway of a threat the way his - did his eye actually just spark there?

“Enough,” Shenice considered.  “Enough that letting go of you has been harder than she lets on and you’d believe.  And I’m saying that ‘cuz she holds me in confidence.  She was really broken up when I moved here.  She had her hands full with Richie, but was nice to me.  I thought it was only proper to help.  ...She made you out to be some angel on Earth but nobody knew where you went and _if_ you’d return.”  Her tone softened as if she was trying to reconcile with Virgil over a friendship they never had.  “Your folks didn’t even tell us about the phone call from Taos until the night you came home because you disappeared _again_.”

Virgil tried and failed to stifle the pang of guilt over that.  Helping take down the Reach made more sense that night Luthor broke them out.   But Sharon had really taken him to task for calling them out of the blue for a ride to Dakota City only to vanish.  She had given him a very thorough rundown of the expected psychological impacts she knew from her college studies, a personal account of her traumas, and an account of Virgil’s future traumas if that ever happened again.  Leaving a disaster zone and more unanswered anxieties for his family to puzzle out had been a really bad way to break months of radio silence under the care of the aliens.  A terrible thought dawned on Virgil then.

“Did you guys get in touch with my sister?”

Shenice raised a brow at the non-sequitur.  “We told her we’d call her when we had word, but then there was school.  We were going to put you on the phone… and then you had that “phone call” in the parking lot.”  Then she muttered under her breath, _“Never mind that your phone somehow wasn’t working when we were up calling you at **three** in the morning…”_

That nugget of information went by Virgil’s head entirely as he shook it in dismay.  Yet another badly timed disappearing act, even if calling Nightwing in had been a good idea.  “My big sister’s going  to go all Big Brother on me when I get home…” he wilted.  He ignored Shenice miming playing a little violin between her fingers.  Instead, he dwelled on how he managed to turn yet another well-intended act into one more wedge between him and his family until Richie came to mind again.  “Let’s find Richie fast…”  Virgil would suffer ten lifetimes of Big Sister Sharon breathing over his shoulder  if he were sure that putting his damn foot where his mouth was hadn’t driven his best friend to an early grave.  “You still haven’t said why you know he’d be heading for this part of town...”

Shenice about faced and led Virgil for about a half minute without a word before she finally explained without looking back.  “He’s been hanging with F-Stop.”

Virgil came to an immediate and very quiet stop.  “Francis.  Francis Stone?  He pulled a gun on me the night I vanished - **he pulled a gun on my mom - _WHY THE HELL WOULD RICHIE BE WITH FRANCIS STONE?_** ” he yelled at the top of his lungs - his last thread of sanity stretched too thin and snapping before Shenice’s eyes if she bothered to look back.  She didn’t bother.  Doing so would only confirm exactly what she had suspected would happen when she dropped that happy little bomb on Virgil.

The girl clutched her aching forehead and muttered angrily to herself..  “‘Be a decent person Shenice.’  ‘We all have to make sacrifices Shenice.’  ‘There are always other ways of helping people Shenice.’  No good deed goes unpunished _Shenice_ ,”   Shenice considered telling Virgil the truth then, but then they found themselves back on one of Dakota’s City’s main roads and right by Paris Island.

“You can ask him yourself if he’s in there.”   Both their phones buzzed then - testaments to thinking like students mindful of school on normal days.  It was just a simple message: _\- “Any luck?” -_  from Daisy like the last couple ones.  Though the phones shook again as she followed up.  It was more than the messages she’d been periodically sending after the all-caps typo-riddled monster about running into Nightwing.  Virgil had hoped that would’ve cheered him up a notch but even thinking back to it and ignoring how soberly (relatively speaking) Daisy handled meeting Nightwing, he found himself slipping towards despair.   _\- “No luck here.  Paris Island?” -_

“Daisy knew about Richie and Francis?” Virgil’s tone of voice sounded strangled like he was moments away from blowing up.  With her back still turned and eyes closed, Shenice couldn’t appreciate just then how literal that thought was.

“If Richie didn’t tell you, then that’s between you two,” she said making it clear that she was not going to play the blame game with Virgil here.

A hand wrapped its fingers forcely around her shoulder.  Despite her absolute surety that Virgil was not someone she necessarily needed to fear, Shenice could feel the hairs all over her body tingle and stand on end.  “Riche and I met in _elementary school_ ,” Virgil hissed into her ear.  “He and I go way back and you weren’t there to sort out the mess with his family.”

Shenice met his eyes unflinchingly.  “Yeah.  I only helped him sort out the mess over his best friend’s ‘death,’” accusation dripping from her voice like poisonous bile.  Virgil’s entire body went numb and, feeling his grip loosen, she shrugged out of his grasp.  “You were so hung up on Daisy, you didn’t think about Richie that much did you?”

“That is so not true!  I was worried about Richie too!  But I know my man is stronger than that!”

“...you really have no idea what you mean to Richie do you?” Shenice asked, cold and genuinely antagonistic now where she had maintained aloof indifference before.

That made Virgil pull up short.  “What do you mean?…”

“For all your claims about caring about Richie, you really have no idea how his mind works do you?” Shenice jabbed a finger into Virgil’s chest.  “You had no idea what he was really going through.  He isn’t just your friend Hawkins, he’s mine now too and I’ve seen how you treat him and I actually talk to him so I can def’ say that he has bullies that treat him better than the way you do.”

“What do you mean Shenice?” Virgil repeated. He tried to draw up his ire from before, but a pit had opened in his stomach and his voice wavered now.

Shenice opened her mouth, but then something made her pause and reconsider.  She had Virgil in the palm of her hand, but then turned away finally taking those damning eyes off him.  “I’m not just talking about the way you keep leaving him hanging Hawkins.  It’s not my place to say though…  Come on, we should go before it gets late.  Uh, later…”  It was only five, but the world was still recovering from the weirdness of the Reach’s magnetic field disrupters.  Dakota City had it easy compared to earthquakes, floods, and freak windstorms.  The sun decided to go down a couple hours ahead of schedule, so what?  A deadline to Richie getting caught up in Paris Island’s nightlife, that’s what.

Virgil and Shenice’s uneasy ceasefire shattered along with Dakota City’s pre-summer laze as a loud “whumping” sound and bizarre purple fog filled the sky in the distance.  “That’s the port where the gang bangers were going to fight!” Shenice bolted, running as fast as her legs could carry - which was admittedly surprisingly fast to the point that Virgil couldn’t keep up training or not.

Then understanding, vivid and terrifying, struck Virgil like lightning as he instinctively followed.  Daisy and Shenice thought Richie was with Francis.  Francis was one of Dakota Union’s most infamous juvie gang bangers.  Francis’s gang wouldn’t miss out on a fight like the one Daisy and Shenice thought Richie was going to be involved with.  Now he had an idea why and Vigril made a judgement call.  Several trash cans were careless strewn around the alley he followed Shenice down.  Reaching out, Virgil magnetized and brought one over with a bolt of energy and drew on having just enough practice to jump on it running.  He shot ahead of an absolutely bewildered Shenice and cleared the cramped alley well ahead.  Before him, the chain-link fence of the Dakota City port docks rose, a mockery of a barrier between the city and the purple dream-like fog swirling out from within.

Between all of that and Virgil stood Richie.

 

 


	4. The Hive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virgil and Richie make a new friend with wicked toys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Young Justice, Teen Titans, Static Shock, and others works whose characters and stories are used and referenced in this fic are not my property. The convoluted plot is though. :3

_**Dakota City**_

_**July 6, 2016** _

_**17:24 CST** _

“RICHIE!” Virgil guided his makeshift transport to Richie just as the purple gas began winding through the chain-link fence.

“Virgil?  What are you doing here? _How, **how are you doing that?** ”_

“Not now Richie!” Virgil glided low and came to a hovering  stop next to Richie. “Stay close!”

Magnetics was an aspect of Virgil’s power the Team was particularly keen on.  With Rocket and Zatanna graduated to the League, the Team’s defensive options tended towards preemptive tactics.  This had mixed success and, one way or another, someone ended up hurt - a lot.  Virgil was, at the moment, the only Team member who had the ability to actively offer cover for the team with his talents short of being a living shield like Superboy and Wonder Girl.  After seeing Black Beetle wipe the floor with them on the Reach ship, he was more than happy to accept training to hone his defensive talents instead.

Virgil pushed out with his power creating a bubble of magnetized force.  The purple gas flowed right over leaving them in a orb of untouched air.  The gas billowed by, leaving them safe secure.  “Heh, look at me now Nightwing, can't touch this.”

A high thin coughing rang out behind them.  “Shenice!” Richie cried.

Virgil whirled to see the girl on her knees, hacking and coughing as the purple smog dissipated into the evening air.  “Oh no...” He had completely forgotten about Shenice in his rush to secure Richie.  The blond boy ran towards her only to slam into the bubble of force Virgil had projected.  It flickered and Virgil’s guilt let the force field falter and give way to Richie’s frantic hammering. It released the boy to go to Shenice’s side.

“ **Shenice!**  Talk to me!  What’s wrong?”  Richie turned to Virgil his eyes frantic.  “What was in that gas Virgil?  Shenice can’t be dying?” The last question had Richie on the verge of tears as Shenice continued to hack and retch violently.

“I - I don’t know…” Virgil’s shoulders slumped in weary defeat.

“N00bs,” a new voice announced.

Virgil and Richie turned to stare at the shipyard in time to see the flash of a bright light cut through the chain link fence.  The steel wires smoked red as the section of fence fell outwards and sizzled.  In the back of his mind Virgil noticed vaguely that the wire was liquefying under the heat and the concrete was breaking apart under the red hot meta - even it unable to stand the aftermath of whatever had cut down the fence.

From the hazier remnant of the smoke that clung to the shipyard’s depths, an arachnid-like shape emerged.  Virgil tensed as a young boy hanging from the junction of four robotic limbs emerged from the smoke.  The condescending voice could only belong to him - though he was underwhelming to Virgil as he took in the other’s green jumpsuit and goggles.  The boy was diminutive and bald and wore bold red visor glasses which seemed to paint a hilarious picture, but Virgil noticed that the skintight jumpsuit clung to a muscled physique.  The robotic limbs moved with efficiency too and the boy tensed from where he hung like a beast of prey ready to pounce.  As he did so, Virgil caught sight of another two limbs clasping a familiar figure just to the back of the newcomer.

 _“Francis!”_ Richie _screamed_ from behind him.  The redhead had seen better days - a bruise was fresh and gradually mottling across his forehead and one arm hung in a way that could only clearly mean it had been broken. Perhaps it was a blessing for the redhead that he was out cold.  Virgil suspected he would rather be knocked out than subject to whatever robo-boy had him tied up to.  Cables ran from the boy’s back to points over Francis's shoulders and chest.  The junction between cable and flesh on his right shoulder where his arm looked broken was bleeding slowly, the red dripping on the ground the end of a trail that extended into the cacophony of wails and screams in the shipyard.

 _“Francis, NO!”_  Richie yelled again.  Virgil whirled and used a weak pulse of electricity to push his friend back as the blond geek attempted a headlong charge towards the dwarf.

“Richie stop!  It’s too dangerous man!” Virgil snapped.

“So the n00b learns.  Get wrekt.” One metallic leg smacked into Virgil and sent him flying and into Richie. It was so sudden - all he had done was take his eyes off their assailant for a moment and in that short space of time, he had struck and incapacitated both the boys.  Virgil hoped that this was a testament to his foe’s skill, not his own inexperience.

“Man, Black Beetle and Red Volcano I get, but you?  No way am I going down to a l33t speak assassin gnome!” he complained.

The kid’s eyes narrowed as Virgil got back to his feet and took to the air.  “What did you call me scrub?”

“What never played World of Warcraft? **HAH!** _Out-geeked!_ ” Virgil taunted in a sing song voice.  He launched a thin strip of lightning at his attacker who twitched a limb to block it.

“Goes to show snot-nose, you’re playing kiddy games.”  A peculiar looking gadget at the end of a cable snaked out from behind the assailant and glowed red. “ Have a taste of the real deal!”  Virgil instinctively obeyed his training and dropped instead of flying away.  The bright light from earlier cut a vermilion swathe in the space he had been moments before - it was so hot the air distortions made the beam appear to ripple.  “That shut you up didn’t it crud-muncher!  Eat metagene!”  Virgil was too busy weaving and tumbling out of the way of the other boy’s heat beams to have a chance to respond.  There was just enough of a pause between shots to recover, but not enough to do more than get out of the way before it fired again, never mind get closer.  Virgil could try to close the gap, but then there was the matter of the robot limbs.

While Virgil and their attacker were occupied, Richie had a chance to observe their assailant’s tech.  It didn’t take long for the blond boy long to notice that the cable supporting the heat ray was of a different make - specifically thinner, exposed, and a glossier silver - than the rest of the tech.  It all looked apiece together, but those clues suggested the cannon was a specialized function - something Richie recognized in the cables connected to Francis.  Francis had something to do with all the cannon?

 ** _“Y-o-o-o-o-u-u-u!”_ ** screamed a voice.  Everyone turned to see a mass of water roil forward and quiver.  It adopted a form familiar to Richies’s eyes before collapsing again.

“Holy - Maria??” Richie recognized the face of Francis’s good friend rise and collapse as the water being struggled to coalesce again.

Maria was hard to understand as her voice seemed to radiate unsteadily from every surface of the mass of water, but Richie managed to catch the gist of the echoing, distorted voice.  “I saw you!  You’re the one that destroyed it!  You did this to me!” Her “me” stretched out as the water suddenly exploded everywhere and sent a jet of liquid straight at the boy.  Somehow, it struck with enough force or speed or both to break the limb it struck in half - reflective coating or not.  This forced the enemy to spend precious moments recovering which gave Virgil time to act.

It gave Richie time for a stunning realization about their foe’s tech and the purple cloud.

Virgil moved in to shock the boy directly, but his opponent suddenly dropped Francis.  The two unburdened robotic limbs were free to snatch Virgil which one did as the other crumpled his trash can lid like paper.  “ _No!”_ Richie couldn’t help crying out.  

Virgil resisted - electricity arcing from his body in bursts as he pushed against the deceptively flexile grip of the robot.  Recalling the bubble earlier, Virgil pushed out with a magnetic field and managed to create enough of a gap in the grip to squeeze down.   He then threw himself clear as his foe growled in frustration and tried to pin him with another limb.

“That’s it, nerf hammer time.”  Richie was as surprised as Virgil when the boy voluntarily detached himself from the limbs and dropped to his own two feet.  He wasn’t sure what to think when the boy extracted a simple cylinder from the depths of his suit.  It wasn’t the reality of it which was seeing it telescope at one end and unfold into a rather whimsical looking, if enormous, hammer.  

“You’re going to hit me with that?  Looks like you shoullda upgraded from balsa wood when you try to compensate kid.”

Richie was sure there was more to that than an opening for Virgil to taunt him and was bitterly rewarded by the tech boy’s smirk.  “Shows what you know scrub.”  The hammer was really just a frame of a hammer, but within moments a layer of viscous goo formed on the fragile-looking struts.  Richie was trying to work out what the secret could be, but Virgil was a already charging at the foe.  He was determined to make the most of the advantage he believed his enemy had given him.  Nightwing would be proud.

“Ever heard of electrorheological fluids ya twit?”

Richie stared at the hammer with sudden understanding.  “Virgil! Wait”

But Virgil couldn’t, he was already only a few steps away and winding up a fist that was near-blinding with electricity.  His opponent pressed a button on the handle and Virgil got the sense of an electric current running through the hammer.  Before he could puzzle it out, the tech brat was already swinging the hammer at Virgil’s jaw.   _‘So fast!’_ Virgil had time to think before the suddenly very solid hammer knocked him off his feet and unconscious.

The tech kid flipped his hammer upside and proudly rested his chin on the end of the handle.  “One simple electric charge plus some nanotech means the fluid hardens and I have a lightweight hammer that’s tougher than diamonds.  My personal touch of course, n00b.”

Tech kid cackled as another three tendrils like the one connected to Francis appeared from his abandoned harness and limbs to shoot out and plug themselves into Virgil.  The young hero was unconscious, but nonetheless coughed up blood as the limbs dug in and _something_ rooted itself under his skin. Maria appeared to be struggling to reconstitute herself from the puddles her attack scattered around the area.  Shenice was still out where Richie dropped her.  Even as Richie screamed for his friend - and their only solid chance for survival - a new cable and weapon snaked out to join the heat ray.

“Shut up pit-sniffer,” the boy dismissed as data ran through his helm and verified compatibility with the black boy.  He used this new weapon to fire a pulse of electricity at Richie as the blond boy recklessly charged him.  The young boy did indeed shut up, but was still very much aware through the electrically-induced paralysis as he slid to his knees.  With that the young boy with a knack for robotics looked around.  He was satisfied that the situation was under control and no one else in the shipyard was going to be involved.  Already more explosions and screams rose from the chaos there.  He raised a hand to his ear.  “Brother Blood, this is Gizmo reporting in.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Give Richie a cough drop. He's screamer huh? B)  
> No fancy title this time. Gizmo was fun to write, but I'm terrible at l33t if anyone noticed. So I'm trying to lean towards his Teen Titans incarnation. Using zeros instead of o for n00b just seemed like the right thing though. Also, me no can science. I'm taking liberties with the electrowhosiawingading obviously. And the magnet bubble of miracles. Look up electrorheological fluids and ferro fluid though, fascinating stuff.


	5. Gizmo and the Metagene

**Dakota City**

**July 6, 2016**

**17:33 CST**

“Brother Blood, this is Gizmo reporting in.”  The line was silent for a long time, but Gizmo’s growing concern wasn’t over the tech.  It was for the person at the other end of the line.

A silhouette against white flickered into existence before cutting out to a black square with the phrase “- HIVE SOUND ONLY -” the only thing on it. _\- “...well young pupil, you must have done well to be **flaunting** discretion and protocol so.” -_   The sullen voice lacked its usual rich, patronizing glee and Gizmo fought down an instinctual fear of the steely tone in his mentor’s voice.  He was too important to the Hive for Blood to punish - infinitely more capable than the lunkhead Mammoth, and far more skilled and multi-talented than the other Hive students like Firefly or Mantis.  Not to mention, he succeeded in both in his mission and developing the prototype.

Nonetheless, Gizmo reported as efficiently as he could. “Alva Corp has indeed managed to succeed.  Even if they don’t know the compound themselves, we have a means to stimulate metagene genesis and activate it.”

 _\- “A successful mission is not a justification to disobey **MY** DIRECT ORDERS ON RADIO SILENCE **YOUNG STUDENT!** ” -_ Blood’s temper slipped.

“I weaponized it!” Gizmo quickly interjected hoping to distract the headmaster.  Taking full advantage of the momentary pause Gizmo continued to explain his recent pet project.  Schematics of the weapon and logistical info uploaded itself to Blood’s office as Gizmo explained his proposal: use this new tech to tap into the meta’s potential and immediately harness it in the most devastatingly simple weapon to put in inexperienced hands for killing - a gun.

“And here’s the proof,” Gizmo gestured to the red headed and dreadlocked boys he had captured.  “I sampled these two’s powers and successfully used both.”  He demonstrated by turning a nearby dumpster to melted slag and fried the other.  With the dumpster still crackling with electricity, Gizmo braced himself for Blood’s judgement.  He had gotten a bit carried away with his mission, but it was a success!  He’d even toned down his own preference for l33t as it grated on Blood’s nerves and now they had two captives to add to the academy’s rosters once Blood brainwashed them.  The so-far unaffected girl looked to be rejecting the chemicals and might die soon and the blond one was conspicuously untouched by the chemicals.  Oddly his scans confirmed the same for the black boy.  “The water one might be weaponizable too, but bringing her back may be time-consuming and dangerous.”

_\- “...your weapon lacks a certain finesse Gizmo.  Yes it is capable of great destruction, but it still all-too reliant on the nature of the metagene’s powers.  Now that we have a way to...motivate the potential, the next course of action is to isolate influences and sculpt the metagene for consistent results._

_However, I am more than willing to overlook your transgression with the electropath.  If I am not mistaken, he was one of Luthor’s recruits and is now one of the League’s pet junior do-gooders.”_ With a hint of approval in his tone, Blood seemed to be coming around to Gizmo’s cocky slip-up breaking radio silence. _“Bringing him to the HIVE would go far with establishing ourselves to the Light and cement our Mistress’s support.  I would have you bring your newest underclassmen peers in post-haste.” -_

“And the blonde?”  Gizmo wondered staring down Richie as he was literally captive audience to their conversation.

_\- “He has powers?” -_

Gizmo began a scan on Richie. “Some apparently, but it doesn’t look like anything useful.”  Another set of connectors were called out and rammed into the blonde boy’s chest.  “Nothing that my tech can use,” Gizmo snorted dismissively as Richie made choking gasps of pain.

_\- “Hmm...sometimes the most powerful talents are just under the surface.  A skilled tutor can make the difference between a pupil’s success or a life in obscurity.  Bring him to me.” -_

“Yes headmaster.”

With a gesture, the three metahuman boys were raised above the ground and Gizmo summoned his hovercraft.  It was while he was admiring his handiwork during the wait that he heard a girl’s voice nearby call out, “Richie!  Shenice, _Virgil!_ ”

Gizmo looked up to see another black girl with a parted angle-bob run up.  “Tch. No powers here.”  He unholstered a laser from his belt.  “Bye girly-girl.”

At that moment, Gizmo noticed the growing shadow at his feet.  He rolled forwards just out of reach of Nightwing’s escrimas as he dropped down hard with both.  Gizmo’s eyes and Dick’s met then and both pairs of eyes narrowed, each recognizing the rehearsed reactions and critically assessing gaze of one trained in espionage.  The smaller of the two wasted no times in turning his new weapons on his new foe and brought out another laser pistol.  Rather than facing Gizmo head-on, Dick was able to sprint to cover and turned to his arsenal of trick weapons.  The batarangs and smoke bombs, were more oft than not, shot out of the air, but they still gave Dick enough of a measure of safety to leave his pockholed hiding spots for new cover and keep Gizmo from pressing his advantage in firepower.  Amid the firefight, Daisy running to Shenice and falling to her knees by her friend was completely missed.

Dick was down to seven standard batarangs and no more than a handful each of the explosive or freeze ones.  His mind raced as he tried to seek an opening.

“Oh tighty-whitey, come out come out wherever you are!  Bet you’re wetting yourself by now!  I can’t believe you’ve run out of ammo already, I’ve got plenty to spare.”

Dick scowled.  He didn’t buy Gizmo’s lie for one second and was sure his foe was already planning contingencies for Dick’s last few ‘rangs - but Dick was out of options.  Closing in on Gizmo was one thing, but with his machine providing cover fire while holding Virgil and the other two kids hostage, he was stuck.  If he ever did get in position to take one of them down, the other would shoot him down.

He decided to risk it anyways.  Dick was out of smoke pellets, so instead he threw all but one of his explosive batarangs at Gizmo.  The three batarangs were shot out of their air, but detonated close enough to the smaller boy to knock him off his feet.  That gave Dick a chance to send his freeze ‘rangs at the legs of Gizmo’s backpack as it mockingly dangled the other three boys at him.

Dick was quick to let loose with his last explosive ‘rang to take advantage of the gadget’s frozen state, but couldn’t quite match the speed of Gizmo’s high-end processor.  Even as its legs froze over, it adjusted for the sudden loss of mobility and sent twin pulses of heat and electricity at Dick.  The acrobatic hero was able to twist out of the way of the heat wave, but cried out as the electrical shock just grazed his bicep and threw his aim off.  It barely grazed, but was still enough to numb his entire right arm.  As he fell, Dick spared a pitiful thought for the blond boy Richie who had taken the full brunt of the blast - the paralyzer was making his arm spasm and tingle in the _strangest_ way.  The rest of his mind watched numbly as the explosive batarang flew wide of its mark instead of blowing up and taking out a couple of those incredibly capable robot limbs as Dick hoped.  As if adding insult to injury, the unmanned machine picked off the batarang and began rocking its limb out of the ice, completely unfazed by the explosion.  Dick tried to pick himself back up, but beyond his view of the mucky pierside he could hear Gizmo laughing.

~*~

Richie was numb all through his body.  It tingled painfully as each bump, each jolt of the machine’s movements, sent pins and needles through him that left him breathless.  Worse was the machine squirming under his skin.  Richie was too past whelmed to think about what it could be doing which was probably a small blessing of itself - the aching pain and agony against the slick feeling of blood slowly soaking into his sweatshirt was bad enough.  He badly wanted to give in to blissful unconsciousness, but a part of him wondered and was afraid that he wouldn’t wake up.  Then he coughed feeling the mechanism shift again and new pressure on his chest.  A beeping sound began to drown out the sounds of battle around Richie.

He hadn’t bargained for this day, all he wanted was for Francis to come back safe from the docks.  Richie hadn’t counted on Virgil coming in on a trash can lid, so it was a shock even if he had enough suspicions about his “best friend.”  Old Richie would’ve loved that.  But, old Richie wouldn’t have hung out with Francis.  Old Virgil would have hung out with him.  Old Francis never would have.  

If Richie had a regret then, it was that he hadn’t had more time to spend with Francis as he had gotten to know the boy over the last few weeks.  Richie forced his eyes open and stared morosely at Francis.  The beeping disoriented him, but Francis’s blond highlights and cheap store-bought dye job was easy enough to find.  Would he wake up?  What if this Gizmo put Francis into a coma and he never woke up?  It might be bliss compared to whatever fate Gizmo had in store for them, but the thought of Francis - so defiant and determined - being reduced to a vegetable for the rest of his life saddened Richie more than his own imminent fate.  If Richie hadn’t been caught by the gang, maybe Francis wouldn’t have agreed to the stand-off against Ivan’s gang.  Maria kept Francis’s old gang from ripping him apart on the spot, but it was a close thing and earned Richie no favors with the Latina girl.  She had warned Francis that Richie was going to be trouble from the start.

Look where they were now.  As the beeping insistently echoed in his ears, faces came to mind.  Francis out cold indefinitely, Richie helplessly strung up beside him, and Maria a literal mess on the ground trying to pull herself together.  And Virgil?  He should never had been tied up in this.    Shenice?  A despondent part of Richie wrote her off as dead.  All of it was his fault...just like with his mother…Richie closed his eyes and let the beeping tune everything out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the wait and the brevity- my schedule is overbooked as of late.


	6. Mysterious Beeping Noise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie makes a new friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Young Justice, Teen Titans, Static Shock, and others works whose characters and stories are used and referenced in this fic are not my property. The convoluted plot is though. :3

**_Dakota City_ **

**_July 6, 2016_ **

**_17:48 CST_ **

Gizmo snorted as he just grazed Nightwing again.  “Can’t run forever Bat brat. _Fire!_ ”

Dick grit his teeth and dove around the corner as Gizmo’s mad science project fired again.  His muscles screamed at him and his breath was gone, but the HIVE agent  hadn’t killed him yet.  Operating word being “yet.”  Dick had to fall back - it was destroying him and he wanted very much to find another way out, but Gizmo simply held all the cards.  No matter how Dick maneuvered, Gizmo was somehow able to keep up with him and stay firmly between Dick and his machine if not drive him off entirely.  Either Gizmo was just cut out for this kind of life, or this...Blood’s training was just that effective.  It was on par with Bruce’s regimens as least.  As he reflected on this, he finished binding his entirely useless right arm so, at the least, it wouldn’t get in the way.

Dick had lost track of Daisy though.  With both him and Gizmo caught up trying to take the other down, the young girl had been completely forgotten and while it made sense at first to at least draw Gizmo and his machine away from her, it made doubling back a very dangerous proposition.

Still, Dick owed Virgil that much at least.  He had tried sending a signal to the others at the Tower, but Gizmo had the forethought to somehow jam any signals from the pier - likely the machine.  Maybe if he could get far enough away…Dick breathed hard, weighing his options: go back and at least recover Daisy, or retreat and bank on the faint hope that Daisy could get away.  From an assassin and his tricked up science project of a pet on her own.  And expect the stubbornly determined girl he spent the afternoon learning to respect to leave behind her friends.  

Dick slammed his left arm into the wall with a growl of frustration.  He didn’t want to go, but he didn’t see how risking all odds to extract Daisy was going to save any of them.

 _“...I know if you’re with Daisy nothing bad is going to happen to her.”_  Virgil not quite meeting his eyes filled Dick’s mind.  Like many times before Dick realized he had a choice to make.  But which one was the right one?  Dick looked for an escape route as the sound of Gizmo and his machine drew close, but a decal on the wall drew him short.  A decal with very familiar symbols.  He stared at the graffiti, looking past the S shield; the bat; the red, white, and blue circled star; the lantern - all those symbols.  It was the scarlet and gold lightning bolt that he couldn’t tear his gaze from.  

Dick had one more option…  Batman had been on his case for years, but ever since the first fateful day at Cadmus, they had discussed the idea of keeping track of the Team using a tracer that emitted a signal at a set period of time. Dick and Babs were testing and offering themselves as guinea pigs as they puzzled over the benefits vs the doubts.  It just so happened that today was one of those days he was field running their new prototype.  The question was...would Babs pick up on the discrepancy in time and actually look in?  Or would she just write it off as - no.  Dick threw that thought out.  Malfunction or no, Babs was far too professional to overlook such an occurrence.  Dick estimated that they had engaged Gizmo at sometime around 5:30, but when had he turned on the tracker?  It was almost a half hour...if he could hold out a while longer then - .  Then something nearby blew up and Dick looked back.  He grit his teeth and ran from Gizmo’s cackling laughter echoing all around him.

~*~

Daisy had been so concerned with administering to Shenice, it took her a while to notice Nightwing trying to get to her.  When she did, she despaired to see him finally getting chased away by the mysteriously agile brat with guns.  His machine, still carrying the three boys, was quick to follow.  Thinking quickly, she dragged Shenice away hoping their attacker wouldn’t consider dividing and conquering.  It didn’t look good - she wasn’t sure if she could drag Shenice to safety in time.  As she did Daisy bit her lip.  All those literary debates and her arguing against damseling raced in her mind as she considered her options.  If she could hide herself and Shenice away...

Shenice coughed, making Daisy pause.  Her friends’s vitals had been going wild.  At first it had been so slow Daisy began to wonder and then tried to stop herself from thinking any further beyond the possibility that Shenice was slipping into a coma.  Which didn’t make sense - why would a coma make her heart beat so slow and then so fast now?  Daisy set Shenice down and tried to check the other girl’s pulse with numb-clumsy fingers.  She took a deep breath of own and steadied her hands, finding the pulse and…  “...it’s faster than before…” she muttered to herself.  Her other hand went to rub her temple.  What could it mean?

“...D-Daisy?” Shenice rasped.

~*~

It was taking Richie a while to recover from having the machine basically shoved into his chest.  He hung from the machine in miserable silence as Gizmo was led his machine on a wild goose chase after Nightwing.  Then the hero had ducked into a bunch of narrower side streets he could barely have squeezed into - never mind the machine.  Gizmo seemed to weigh his options before he barked an order to watch the rear and their prisoners and went in after Nightwing.  Maybe he realized the machine was just giving away his position.  Maybe he had a trick or two up his sleeve to make him so confident about taking down Nightwing.  In any case, Richie languished in the hold of Gizmo’s machine with a morbidly silent Virgil and Francis on either side.  “All my fault,” he muttered, closing his eyes.

_...(Subject “Richie” appears to be relapsing.)_

“Eh?”  Richie just about gave up the sound as a product of his stressed mind when he heard it again.

_(What is subject “Richie’s” fault?)_

“Eh?” Richie repeated eloquently.

When more silence greeted him, his mind wandered to the unbelievable.  “...you an angel?” Richie whispered.  He felt like giving up to the hazy and incoherently numb part of his brain.  It was better than allowing his thoughts to circle back around to the fear that if Francis was dead, then there wasn’t much reason to linger was there?  The voice didn’t respond, but its question did make a face come to mind.

“Virgil,” Richie wheezed softly..

The voice seemed to accept that answer. _(The subject “Virgil’s” capture was achieved with subject “Richie’s” interference.)_

Richie chuckled bitterly, his eyes still closed.  “Not pulling your punches are you?  That's not something very angelic to say...”

_(Subject “Richie” repeats “angel.”)(Subject “Richie’s” mental well being has been compromised.)_

Richie was instantly reminded of his father.

_“That Virgil boy was one thing - you’re just wrong in the head Richard!” his father roared as he jabbed a cowering Richie in the stomach.  “Never talk like that again!”_

He fought free of the memory.  “...you’re not the first to say that,” his whisper barely audible to himself.  “Who are you anyway?”

_(This has no assigned designation.)_

“This?”

_(The question is redundant.)_

Richie cracked open his eyes again and found little different enough to be encouraging.  He was still hanging in midair with Virgil, Francis, and Richie.  He couldn’t even turn around to see how far back Shenice was and what happened to her.

“Who?...Are you invisible?”

 _(No.)_  There was no one else in sight.  Well…Gizmo cackled in the distance and the ground shook from a blast well ahead of them.  He was still trusting his machine thing to keep the metahumans secured Richie supposed.  Metahumans...that was what he and Francis were then huh?  And Virgil too Richie surmised as his thoughts cleared.  It made a couple of his theories about Virgil work.  Speaking of theories...how was he having a conversation with something he couldn’t see?  All he could hear was that _damn_ beeping starting and stopping.

“Then who are you?  I’ve lost it haven’t I?”

_(Subject “Richie” suspects a problem in its mental wellbeing?)_

““Subject Richie” is  talking to a voice in his head - to someone I can’t see - and you’re asking me about my wellbeing?” Snarking was definitely helping wake him up and feel like himself at least.

_(This is completely visible to normal spectrums of human sight.)(Has subject “Richie’s” eyesight been compromised?)_

“No,” Richie scoffed, “I can see just fine! Like that freak hunting down one of the greatest superheros on Earth like a turkey hunt!”

_(Verifying subject “Richie’s” health.)_

A laser whirred to life and ran down and back up the length of Richie’s body.  He followed the source to a projector at the top of Gizmo’s machine.  “No way…”

_(Compared to previous scan, health appears) -_

“You’re the _**fucking backpack thingy???**_ ”  Oddly enough the voice stopped and seemed to wait for Richie to continue.  As did the beeping.  Thankfully Gizmo seemed to preoccupied with blowing up Dakota’s City’s back alleys to hear Richie’s cry echo in the back alleys over the distant racket.

When he didn’t continue, the machine did. _\- (to be within acceptable bounds.)(A more thorough scan reveals signs consistent with diagnosis with depression.)_

Richie gaped at the machine.  “I’m talking to the enemy’s assassin-tentacle-projector on legs…”  Then a question popped into his mind.  “Wait, why are you keeping track of my health?”

_(The weapons rely on the subjects’ well being.)_

That perked Richie’s interest and he raised his head.  “Wait, so Francis is alive too?”

_(Yes.)_

“He’s not dead?”

_(The question is redundant.)_

“Give me more info!” Richie leaned as close as he was able to the backpack-like unit that was the core of the machine restraining him. “Is he hurt badly?” He sagged  “Will he ever wake up again?”

_(This is unequipped to assess anything beyond necessary vital signs.)_

Richie struggled fruitlessly against the wiring connecting himself to the machine.  “Tell me something useful dammit!”

 _(Running help program.)_ That made Richie stare. _(This is built to assist Gizmo as a mobile high performing aide to achieve his objectives.)(It is voice operated and designed to respond to those who are capable of deciphering the frequency of its AI responses.)_

 _Ahhh._  That explained the beeping then.  Still, Richie wondered aloud, “Wait - are you saying you respond to the commands of those who can understand you?”

_(This communicates in a hyper accelerated audio projection of binary.  This AI is designed to differentiate between those who collude with its queries by accident and those who are capable of sustaining conversation.)_

“Ok, so you’re smart enough to know when you’re being talked to.  Why are you telling me this?”

_(The help feature.)_

That made Richie glance skeptically back towards the direction Gizmo had disappeared.  “Why would he need a help feature?”

_(Gizmo does not.)_

“Sorry, _why_ do you have a help feature?” Richie was starting to get used to prodding for more info.  It didn’t make him think much of Gizmo though - why design something to be so smart, but not equipped to communicate with him?

_(It was installed.)_

“Why was it installed?”

_(Subject “Richie” has queried for a more detailed explanation five times in repetition.)(Updating.)_

Richie made a confused sound, but hardly had to wait as the machine’s laser “eye” blinked for only a few seconds. _(It was installed during updates.)(Updates are automatically installed to allow heightened compatibility with other machines.)_

“...you mean Gizmo allowed you to basically install a universal version of that Word Doc paperclip helper because he wasn’t paying attention to which updates to ignore?”

There was no change in inflection as the machine replied, _(That is not a directive.)_

Richie was about to make a scathing comment when the machine continued _(Does user: Subject “Richie” require a directive to selectively install updates?)_

“I can’t believe he doesn’t keep track of - did you just call me user?” Richie leaned close.

_(Subject “Richie” fulfills all the requirements for qualification as administrative user.)_

A slow smile spread across Richie’s face.  Gizmo seemed very capable, but Richie was starting to get an idea of the gadgeteer and it wasn’t flattering.  His tech was all very cutting edge and sophisticated, but very reliant on Gizmo’s own narcissistic standards.  It didn’t surprise him that the cocky tech whiz would believe himself above normal tech security and rely on his esoteric design to keep everyone else from getting to his stuff.  Almost everyone that is. “Ok...prepare to update access protocols,” he began - drawing on years of fanboyish sci-fi glee with Virgil, watching shows and reading comics in the Hawkins house.

_(Which security settings would subject “Richie” like to update?)_

“A-a-ah - uh...do you have a name?”

_(Gizmo refers to this as “scrudmunching bucket of scraps.”)_

Gizmo had an unhealthy opinion of his own tech Richie decided.  There was no reason to treat the machine this way as if it were only capable of the most basic programs talking to him.  It never crossed his mind that his own metagene was giving him exclusive inside access to a system Gizmo was only rudimentary testing and had yet to really grow into himself - much less perfect.  Instead, Richie wondered if that was a miffed tone in the beeping just now or his mind playing tricks on him.  Probably the latter.  “How about “Backpack?””

_(Confirm.)(Subject “Richie” will refer to this as “Backpack?”)_

“It’s accurate, simple, and a lot better than “bucket of scraps,”” Richie defended.  “And, Backpack?  It’s just Richie.  Or Rich.”

In answer, the light blinked as it processed the request.   _(Updated.)(Query.)(Which security settings would Riche/Rich like to update?)_

Richie barely waited to say, “the one where you say “Richie-slash-Rich” first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It honestly took me forever to write the bit with Backpack here. I kept going in circles.  
> The question is - was it worth it? This bit was something my mind immediately went to when I thought about Richie and Virgil interacting with Gizmo in my little au - I just had no idea how to frame it. I might rewrite it yet.
> 
> Sorry there's so little Static action here, think of it as a plug for the main fic. Should be moving back to the Static side of things soon though.


	7. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gizmo corners Nightwing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Young Justice, Teen Titans, Static Shock, and others works whose characters and stories are used and referenced in this fic are not my property. The convoluted plot is though. :3

**_Dakota City_ **

**_July 6, 2016_ **

**_18:01 CST_ **

The explosions had been getting gradually closer and closer to where Dick had been hiding in an abandoned gas station - each flash hard to miss in the darkening evening sky.  In the distance he could hear screams and the panicked yells of more Dakota City citizens threatened by Gizmo and his flair for dramatics.  Dick bit his lip and raised a hand to his com.  A squawk of static made him wince and shut it off right away.  He didn’t have to look at his wrist to know that it only just past six.  Only a minute ago he watched the hour change and curled his good arm into a frustrated fist.  He trusted Babs, but waiting was still waiting - frustrating and leaving him open to too many worrisome thoughts.

Was Virgil ok?  Dick considered making a mad dash out in the open.  To do so was basically painting a target on himself.  But if Gizmo got desperate, Dick had no reason not to believe he might use Virgil to get some leverage.  He had no grip on what kind of person Gizmo was yet.  Maybe he wouldn’t resort to such low tactics.  Maybe he was as insane as the Joker.  Dick really didn’t want to find out the hard way while the odds were stacked against him.

Another explosion rang just outside and Dick’s good hand went to his utility belt.  All he had were basic batarangs, but he had plenty of those.  He flicked one open and went to the doorway.  That was when he heard a whining sound from above.  More instinctively than reactively, Dick threw himself out the door as yellow flashes of light seared pockmarks where he had just been.  He cursed as he bumped his still-slung right arm and scrambled to his feet.

“Ready to give it up pitsniffer?” Gizmo taunted as he lept overhead to stand before him.  He ducked under one batarang sent at his head and sidestepped left of one that Dick threw to curve to the right.  Gizmo only flicked his gaze to his right before looking back and casually shooting Dick’s third batarang as it swooped close from the left.  “Seriously? Projectile weapons still?  How the hell do you and the overgrown night rat last in this day and age?”  His gaze traveled to Dick’s right arm - from the battering it gripped firmly to the sling still dangling loosely from it.  “Dirty tricks like pretending you're still hurt?” Dick’s eyes narrowed and Gizmo shrugged at the short lived paralysis his weapon induced.  “Guess I need to tweak a few bugs in the thing.  Thanks for the feedback scum-muncher.”

Gizmo locked eyes with him again as he reached into his own utility belt and pulled out an odd looking gadget the size of his fist.  Naturally, Dick took the opportunity to throw several more batarangs, but Gizmo moved past this wave as easily as the last.  It was just as well Dick ducked back inside station as he let loose with the ‘rangs - Gizmo snapped the attachment he pulled out to the tip of his pistol and gripped the handle with both hands.  The resulting spray of fire resembled a gatling gun more than the steady one-by-one pulse of lasers from before.  Dick was forced to crouch behind a counter off to the side with both hands on his head as the assault eviscerated the shattered remnants of windows and sent glass spraying everywhere.

Gizmo twisted the attachment and a new, whining sound filled the air.  “Ready to die?  You really shouldn’t have picked this dump to hide in.” He leveled the gun and the pulsing yellow glow growing at the end at the nearby disused gas pumps.  “All the more boom when I let loose with this.”  Inside, Dick crept to a side exit and tried levering the rusted handle quietly only for it come off in his hand.  The door swung open revealing an automated turret ready and waiting.

“Shit…” Dick growled as threw himself to the side as the turret started up.

The spray of plasma the turret shot out was drowned out by a growing pounding sound.  “Wait, what?” Dick heard Gizmo exclaim as he picked himself up.  Then there was a crunch and shriek of metal outside the door.

Cautiously Dick, stuck his head out of the door and stared at the long leg of Gizmo’s machine from earlier terminating in the sparking remnants of the turret.  He swore and raised a batarang only to see instead of Richie, Virgil, and the stranger Francis hanging as trophies, Richie was strapped into the apparatus where Gizmo once was.  Strapped in, and grinning at him.

“Yo Nightwing! Here to offer some -” Richie was cut off by one of the legs curling around the blond boy protectively against a massive spray of yellow energy.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING WITH MY TECH BUTTWIPE?!?” Gizmo spit and shrilled in absolute fury.  He was hopping up and down fitfully and shooting without care for aiming.  “You bucket of scraps! I told you to watch the prisoners!  Not give one a joyride!”

“There, there,” Richie soothingly rubbed the end of the limb hiding him like it wasn’t a reinforced metal limb whose smooth surface tapered to an precise and deadly spear-like point.  “He just doesn’t know how to appreciate you, does he Backpack?”  The machine let out a string of beeping that Dick hadn’t really paid attention to before.  It sounded - less urgent than before?

“You pile of junk! Drop him and squish him like the ant he is!” Gizmo was still throwing a tantrum and firing wildly into the air.  “Obey already!   **H4xxor override!!!** ”

Richie shrugged at the enraged agent.  “Sorry Gizmo, Backpack and I here have come to an understanding.  No more Mini-me tyrannical knock offs!   Richie raised one hand pointing straight up in the air.  “Viva la Robot Revolution!” he yelled as Backpack swept non-lethally at Gizmo.  Non-lethally, but very painfully; the metal alloy was lightweight, but Gizmo built Backpack to know how to play to its strength and the durability of the metal.  Sadly the blow was easily read and Gizmo simply jumped over the incoming blow.  He even went to far as to employ some sort of thruster in his boots to more than clear the sweeping limb’s reach.

“Ha! Oh, you’re so going to -”

It was hard to say who was the most surprised when a figure darted up behind Gizmo and brought clasped hands down to hammer Gizmo into the ground _hard_.  Dick blinked, seeing yellow with red highlights and reminding himself a speedster was still quicker than that figure.  Gizmo was naturally too winded to answer, but Richie was more than ecstatic to make up for their foe.

“Shenice?!?”

The black girl was barely breathing hard as she landed, crouched.  She effortlessly stood like she hadn’t just lept ten feet into the air, spiked their opponent like a volleyball, and land in one fluid motion.  However, she did seem taken aback as she squinted in the weak illumination of the nearest streetlights.  “Richie?  Is that you?  What are you doing?  What is that??” she pointed at him.

Richie looked down at the straps and harness keeping him secured to Backpack.  “Uh...souvenir?” he suggested lamely.

Both turned to look at Dick as he coughed and pounded his chest desperately.  “Nightwing...uh...you ok?” Richie was fine addressing a superpowered version of Shenice who just saved them, but appeared easily tongue-tied addressing a big name hero he himself pulled out of the fire.  A very handsome, big name hero whose heroism and world-class exploits Daisy kept him very well informed of.  His mind boggled.

“Richie!” Daisy broke the tension as she sprinted her way up to them.  Unlike Shenice who effortlessly had carried her piggyback most of the way here, Daisy was very winded and out of breath - but still clearly delighted to see her friend better off than just earlier.  “Oh my god, Richie!  Are you ok?  Where’s Virgil and Francis?  Oh, uh, hi there...Mr. Nightwing sir.”  Dick saluted crookedly as he recovered his breath.  Her attention snapped right back to Richie.  “Where are they?”

“Backpack set them down a block or so back a-that-away,” Richie pointed a thumb back over his shoulder.  He expected Daisy to make a beeline straight for them, but instead she was fixated on his face and looked surprised.

“Richie...you…”

“What?  I’m too devilishly handsome?  I did singlehandedly save Nightwing, er…” he deferred to Shenice who shrugged and waved off his concern.  “Well - you, Virgil, and Francis are ok, and nobody died!”

Daisy tiled her head curiously, eyes still on Richie.  “You’re smiling again...and this time Francis isn’t even around…”

“...Oh…”  The elation and adrenaline was still in his system, but Richie’s smile slipped a bit.  He took a breath to gather his thoughts and reply, but then -

“Big pit-sniffing deal!” Gizmo lept to his feet and everyone braced themselves.  Dick was impressed, Gizmo had recovered frighteningly quick when he honestly expected their foe to have a broken back or something.  Jumping straight up from lying down was pretty impressive too - it had taken Dick years to master that little trick and Gizmo looked younger than he had been at that point.

Despite his visor crumbling down his face Gizo was still plenty intimidating.  “Sure none of _them_ died.  But did ya check out the docks?” he threw that reminder in their face spitefully even as he ducked under Shenice’s lunge.  He lifted her, and tossed her over his shoulder at Nightwing.  Dick saw it and braced himself - it was a move he was getting used to and should be better at responding to by now.  He had drilled on this pretty recently and caught Shenice handily.  Even so, he was stymied and huffed for breath as he helped set a dizzy Shenice on her feet - thus giving Gizmo an opening.  The enemy agent bounced back and smacked a hand to his shoulder. _“Jets,”_ he snarled.

Gizmo popped into the air as the thrusters on his boots activated again.  Then _yet another_ gadget somewhere on his back roared to life and sent the diminutive agent on a crash course with -  .

“ _Richie!_ Look out!” Daisy cried.

Dick threw a batarang, but was too late and the desperate throw was batted away by Gizmo moments before he full-on tackled a startled Richie.  Both boys went down in a tangle of robotic limbs on the roof of the gas station.

Dick and Shenice shared twin looks of unsure shock before Daisy shouldered between them - hellbent on her friend superpowers or no.  Dick was rueful to realize that Shenice recovered first as she took off in a blur after her friend.  “Daisy waiiii -”

~*~

Richie was in full panic mode as he tried to shove Gizmo off of him.  Gizmo was only half his size, but was clearly in command of the situation as he grabbed Richie’s arms in a crushing grip with one hand and wrenched it back _painfully_.  Richie wailed even as Gizmo twirled an unobtrusive stick of plastic in his right hand.  He just about wet himself as Gizmo suddenly gripped it firmly and an answering spurt of plasma flashed bright yellow.  “Hold still.  Dweeb,” Gizmo growled.  “You can struggle all you want after I start carving out your bleeding heart.”  He yanked Richie’s arm and pulled the terrified blonde’s face close to his.  “No one - _**no one**_ \- messes with _**my**_ tech.”

Daisy popped over the lip of the roof in time to see Gizmo’s right arm drawback and slam home into Richie’s chest. _**“Richie!!!”**_

Shenice jumped up a moment after and both hands shot to her mouth as she stared at the scene before her.  Then her hands twisted into fists and she slammed a meaty blow into the side of Gizmo’s face before he could do more than look their way.  “ASSHOLE!” she yelled as the blow sent him over the edge of the gas station.  She grit her teeth and then closed her eyes, turned away from Richie’s body.

“Miss me?”

Shenice and Daisy looked over to see a pale Virgil and wane if outraged Francis drift up on a pair of sparking trashcan lids.  Shenice merely shook her head and covered her tearing eyes with both hands.  “Virgil…” she heard Daisy begin.

“Thanks V-man.”

Both girls whirled to stare at Richie as he tenderly rubbed his chest.  “That was close.”  His voice squeaked on the last word, hastily pulling back his hand as a flare of pain made him wince.  His shirt was still shredded from Backpack’s attempt to “plug in” on his metagene earlier.  Richie was looking down at the past the crusted blood and wounds Gizmo opened to the raw and red spot on his chest their foe hit him with that would undoubtedly bruise.

Said enemy floated up on his jets.  He jabbed one finger at Richie.  “What the hell is going on here today??”

Virgil cleared his throat and casually raised his clenched right hand.  He opened it to reveal a clump of energy that pulsed the same bright yellow as Gizmo’s plasma knife did.  It sank into the superpowered youth’s skin like water into sand.  “I thank you for the kind donation sir.”  The empty palm shifted into a pointing finger and electricity flared at the end.  “Allow me to return the favor.”

Virgil was knocked aside and his electrical attack forgotten as Francis jumped off his magnetized trash lid and aimed for Gizmo.  “NO ONE TOUCHES _**MY BOYFRIEND**_ ASSHOLE!”

“B-boyfriend?” Virgil sputtered.

Everyone else was more taken aback by Francis’s hands flickering and bursting into wild flames.  Gizmo yelped like a puppy as the teen he made a slave of earlier turned his anger, outrage, and affection for Richie into a massive gout of fire aimed straight for the agent.  Gizmo fell out of sight again, screaming as flames ran hungrily over his green jumpsuit.

Francis landed on the roof and stumbled to his knees.

“Francis…”

Everyone watched as Richie crawled over and Francis leaned forward towards the blond boy.  “Hey beautiful.”  The two embraced warmly to Daisy’s sigh of contentment as she looked on.  Shenice looked over to a shocked Virgil as he drifted close and his power flickered out - dumping him unceremoniously on the rooftop.

“...since...since when did?..” he began to ask.

Shenice met his eyes squarely.  “After you disappeared.”  He didn’t return her gaze - still staring at Richie and Francis.

“You guys!”  Nightwing’s voice called up from the side of the station where Gizmo disappeared.  “Where did he go?!”

Everyone blinked and suddenly realized all at once that Gizmo was no longer screaming.  They ran over to the edge where Virgil and Francis raised an arm each - a handful of brilliant sparks and a steady red glow respectively - as they all scanned the parking lot besides the station.  Nightwing stood at the center of the lot head swiveling back and forth busily, but like most of them looking on from above, didn’t see anything.  “Where…?”

Francis caught a glimpse of movement by the dumpsters and shifted his flame to light them.  It revealed nothing more than shadows.

“Gah!” he spat.  Then he growled ominously.   _“Ivan…”_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully the Richie/Francis was obvious? I was trying to build it up until now. In any case - the plot thickens. And just what has Ivan been up to since Virgil saw the Reach wheel him out as a "failure?"


End file.
